Tourism And Terrorism

Posted: Tuesday, Feb 25, 2003 at 0000 hrs IST
Updated: Tuesday, Feb 25, 2003 at 0000 hrs IST

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: It will be the endeavour of those who wish to hurt India to use terror tactics to scare tourists away. It does not require clairvoyance to figure that out. Hence, both the government and other sections of society interested in promoting tourism, both domestic and in-bound, must have a forward-looking policy on dealing with terrorism that does not hurt tourism. To begin with, it is extremely important that policy makers understand the huge untapped economic potential of the tourism sector. It appears that no one outside the ministry of tourism is even aware of this potential and few view tourism as a high employment and income generating sector. In many developing countries that have successfully focussed on tourism, the sector has emerged as a major source of both employment and foreign exchange earnings. India has not yet tapped the potential in this regard. Once the economic importance of tourism and its central role in the service sector is recognised, the policy framework required to promote this sector will fall in place. It is only then that politicians will begin to recognise how the rhetoric and the mishandling of the terrorist threat has seriously hurt the economy through its impact on in-bound tourism.

After 9/11, India slipped in global rankings as a tourist destination and China surged ahead. Despite this, the government and the political class continue with policies that are bound to hurt tourism even more, helping the agenda of terrorists rather than limiting their impact. Consider, for example, the decision of the Union home ministry to oppose the visa-on-arrival scheme proposed by the tourism ministry. Security-conscious China allows visa on arrival to business travellers and tourists but we don’t. The records of the home ministry will show that it is not so much through international airports that terrorists come into India as they do through our porous borders with all our neighbours. A government that cannot keep terrorists away at the border is wasting its time trying to monitor their arrival through airports. More to the point, the visa-on-arrival scheme is not going to reduce the effectiveness of vigilance at the airports, it will instead promote tourism. The constant rhetoric about terrorism has also hurt tourism. If our politicians keep on talking about the threat of terrorism all the time, without quietly dealing with it, they will only scare potential tourists away. While it is not our intention to belittle...

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